Chapter 126-Display of power

Chapter 126: 126-Display of power

"What about Zolani?"

Maisa finally asked the question that had been sitting heaviest on her mind.

Of all her mates, Zolani’s situation worried her the most. Unlike the others, Zolani hadn’t been born into one of the powerful bloodlines surrounding the royal family. She was low-born, a mixedblood, and in a world where blood determined status, opportunity, and influence, that difference mattered.

Maisa couldn’t imagine the palace offering Zolani the same generous opportunities it offered the others. Thar made her curious about the title Zolani was set to inherit. She figured there was one since Zolani was also present there.

Before Lumi could answer, a deafening alarm suddenly erupted throughout the mansion.

The sound reverberated through the halls, vibrating against the walls and cutting straight through their conversation.

Lumi’s expression changed instantly. The warmth disappeared from her face. It was as though an invisible shadow had fallen over her entire body.

Maisa pushed herself upright and looked at her in confusion. "What is that?"

"The training drill," Lumi sighed as she reluctantly climbed from the bed. "It means we’re expected at the training grounds."

She spoke the words like someone announcing a sentence. "Intense training until we earn approval to rest," she added bitterly.

The exhaustion written across her face suddenly made sense. The palace’s schedule for them was brutal. Every day seemed carefully divided between lessons, magical training, combat exercises, council duties, and whatever else the royal household deemed necessary for them to learn to a flawless level.

Missing training wasn’t an option, avoiding it wasn’t tolerated and sometimes it felt less like they were being prepared to rule a nation and more like they had been drafted into an army preparing for a war that no one had bothered to explain to them.

Lumi hated it. She hated the endless drills, the constant expectations, and the way the palace seemed determined to turn them into weapons before they were allowed to simply be young vampires.

"Why?"

Maisa slipped from the bed and followed her.

Then, without thinking much about it, she hooked her arm through the crook of Lumi’s.

Lumi froze completely. The sudden contact sent a strange sensation through her entire body. Maisa’s skin was warm and not merely warm in the ordinary sense.

The heat seeped through the point where their arms touched and travelled beneath Lumi’s skin, startling every nerve it encountered. Her entire body went rigid, her breath catching somewhere between an inhale and an exhale.

It felt as though she had spent centuries trapped inside an endless block of ice and had suddenly been exposed to sunlight for the first time.

Her skin tingled. Her fingers twitched, and even her thoughts seemed to momentarily scatter beneath the unfamiliar sensation.

Lumi slowly looked down at their linked arms, and then she looked at Maisa. Maisa seemed completely unaware of what she had done.

"What’s the purpose of the training?" she asked innocently.

Lumi stared at her for another second. The warmth was still there. It was steady and impossible to ignore.

For some reason, it made the answer she was about to give feel far more complicated than it should have been. It got stuck in her throat.

Lumi suddenly felt something surge through her. Her magic, it burst outward without warning, sending a strange pressure through the room. The air around her seemed to thicken, becoming denser and more powerful than she had ever experienced before.

It wasn’t yet at the level of her usual mastery, but there was something different about it that felt unfamiliar and ancient.

Lumi slowly lifted one hand and stretched her fingers. The air responded to her. It drifted toward her fingertips as though they were magnets, and the invisible atmosphere surrounding her was made of metal. Currents gathered around her hand, curling between her fingers with increasing force.

Her eyes widened. The sensation was intoxicating, so she raised her other hand, unintentionally dislodging Maisa’s arm from hers.

Then she closed her eyes and listened to the element that always felt like home, not with her ears, but with the magic flowing through her.

A breeze stirred around her. Lumi moved to control it. Her body swayed in a fluid motion, one hand sweeping through the air before the other followed. It almost resembled a dance, except every movement commanded the atmosphere around her.

The wind followed the path of her hands, spiralling around her body and responding to every turn of her shoulders and every shift of her feet.

Maisa stepped backwards. "Wow!" She was amazed by the display of air manipulation.

She could only stare with her mouth wide open and her eyes keenly watching every movement for her own practice later.

Lumi was breathtaking. The air moved as though it were an extension of her body, obeying her without hesitation. Every graceful movement created another current, another spiral, another invisible wave of power.

Maisa had only recently begun learning elemental magic herself. Watching Lumi made her realize just how enormous the difference between understanding an element and truly mastering it could be.

"On day..." Those two words were a promise to herself.

Lumi continued moving. The currents became stronger. The air in the room began circling her faster and faster until loose objects trembled and curtains snapped violently in the invisible wind.

Three minutes passed, and something about her changed. Lumi’s eyes suddenly snapped open, and the playful warmth that usually lived within them was gone.

Her gaze became razor-focused. Her head turned toward Maisa with frightening precision.

"The true heart," she called in a term that Maisa had only read in the secret manual her benefactor sent her.

Maisa froze, a shiver running down her undead body. She could feel that something was terribly wrong with Lumi and the air around them.

Lumi’s voice sounded different. It felt older, colder, and almost as though someone else were speaking through her.

"I’ve heard that you’ve mastered all four elements," she let out, still as serious as ever.

Maisa instinctively backed away. "Lumi?"

Lumi smiled, but it wasn’t her smile. It was more of a provocation of a powerful figure looking down at an ant under its feet.

"She’s unavailable at the moment. Leave a message, maybe... she’ll get it when she comes around," her fingers curled slowly. "But why don’t you show this lowly one the power of a complete elemental, will you?"

"Who are you?"

"You’ll know soon enough, true heart. For now, let’s fight!"

The air exploded, and Maisa barely managed to react before the force struck at her.

The impact tore through the room, shattering sections of the surrounding walls and throwing Maisa backwards. She flew through the opening, her hair getting messy with the breeze and her body waving about before she landed with a thud in the training grounds beyond, rolling across the ground before finally stopping.

She pushed herself upright, disoriented. A sharp ache spread through her chest as she spat out blood.

"Maisa?"

Zolani and Addessa had been training nearby. Both turned toward her in shock at seeing her entry and the loud mess created by her fall.

Before either could reach her, another figure descended from the ruined opening of the second floor of the mansion.

Lumi landed flawlessly. Her blue hair had no single strand out of place, and her frame looked the picture of composure.

She straightened slowly. The playful, nerd girl Maisa knew was nowhere to be seen in her eyes.

"Don’t hold back..." Her lips curved into a smirk. "Goodness knows that I won’t," she added.